The woman in the green dupatta took her hand and together they walked away from the school and down a wealthy street near the palace.
“That girl is who Casildo values most.” Noor crossed her arms over her chest and nodded.
“Casildo has a daughter.” I exhaled at the information. “One who doesn’t live with him.”
“A daughter with his mistress. He keeps her hidden. What I’ve learned from tailing him the past few days is that he has more enemies than just you. He’s cheated others in Basral. He’s turned people in for bending rules that he himself bends.”
“In other words, he keeps his daughter secret in case they come for him.”
“But we are already here.”
I stared at the girl’s retreating form, her chubby legs not yet grown into her body. “Yes, we are.”
Noor began preparing the blends we needed to damage the emperor’s crops on the dressing table beside my bed, grinding up the different-colored seeds with a deftness that spoke to her doing this for a long time. She had to blend the zoraat in my room because it was off-limits to the servants. We couldn’t risk anyone seeing the emperor’s highly valuable djinn magic when it was so restricted in use. I eyed the ochre piles, knowing soon I would be consuming them, and a new power of zoraat would be at my fingertips once more. I tried to dampen the exhilaration my body felt at the thought.
Every time I ingested it, I felt the same burning pain, but also an acute wave of relief. By the end of the day the need for more was aching in the back of my teeth.
I knew what this feeling was. Baba had explained it when we came to Basral and I had seen men drowning themselves in bottles of dark liquor, or children dragging their mother to a healer after she’d drugged herself to oblivion.
If I wasn’t careful, zoraat would consume me too. But as long as I had my revenge, I knew that need would always win out.
“You’re not going to hurt her, are you?”
Noor’s cautious voice broke through my thoughts. She didn’t lookup at me; instead she continued to crush the vibrant seeds and separate the powder into tiny piles.
I spun my dagger on the table, watching the glistening light against the blade. I didn’t have to ask who she was talking about; my mind hadn’t stopped spinning since I’d seen Casildo’s daughter—two wide dimples, still trusting in everything and everyone.
“We are going to do to him what he did to me.” I lifted the dagger and threw it at the well-worn spot on the wall by the door. “But don’t worry. I’ll give Casildo a choice.”
“That didn’t quite answer my question.”
“He keeps her hidden for a reason, which means he’s afraid.” I chewed on my nails, the only thing on my body that felt familiar. “Probably afraid that someone will do to him what he did to my father. What he did to me.”
I looked up at Noor. “The most frightened people are the ones that do the frightening. And no, I don’t have plans to hurt the child.”
“Well, right now we can’t take him down when he has more guards than the palace.”
“Do you know how many times I tried to escape prison?” I asked her, my mind going back to those days, and every route I had tried to take before Noor dug through my floor.
Noor shook her head.
“At least ten. But in each one I learned that nothing is impenetrable. You just need the right opportunity.”
“And what is that?”
I picked up a new dagger, taking aim at the door again. “We are going to make one.”
I visited an old friend of my father’s in the south of Basral, another swordsmith who he would visit when supplying the emperor with weapons. I knew the man had a store of swords he didn’t show anyone, ones that my father would marvel at. He didn’t sell to anyone—and hardly any even knew of them. But as soon as I invoked my father’s name, he unlocked his storeroom and pulled out the most beautiful scimitar I’d ever seen.
“It is said that this is the scimitar Naveed used to kill the azi,” he whispered to me, encouraging me to examine the blade. I choked back a whimper as I held it in my hands and stared at it.
“Thank you,” I said in a hushed whisper.
“It is you who I should be thanking. The swordsmith you spoke of gave this to me for my keeping. I’ve been waiting for someone to claim it since.” He hesitated. “I didn’t believe what they said about him. He cared only for his daughter. He wasn’t going to commit treason.”
I exhaled, my chest tight.
He gave me the scimitar with his blessing.
